Toy Companies Who Re-Release Old Molds
 

Recently it was revealed that the vintage 80's Ghostbusters toys would be getting re-releases as part of the nostalgia cash-grab that the creatively bankrupt toy companies go for with ease nowadays.

In other circles, I've mentioned how TMNT fandom, to it's credit, mostly rejected the Playmates re-releases when they did the same thing. Then I found this and not only is it hysterical, but......

https://i.imgur.com/Gk1X2UMl.jpg

Those Real Ghostbusters action figures are from late in 1986. So, that wasn’t 35 years ago!

I'd rather buy a Origins Scareglow for $20 then the laughable prices a vintage one goes for.

Most reasonable people would've understood that it's a parody meme, Mikey0. I know this is hard to understand, but being so rigid about details in a situation where everyone else is looking at a situation holistically does not actually make you appear smarter or observant - instead it makes people think that you don't understand things.

And I have some appreciation for this. It's a mixed bag of cats because the market commands those prices - basically ridiculous? Yeah, but people pay it so it remains expensive. I can't help but feel that simply going back to old molds for the cash grab is an issue for so many reasons. Yet, just like your Scareglow example, the market responds to these re-issues.

Here's the thing - I think it's one thing, a positive thing, for toy companies to use a little nostalgia grab but bolstering it by doing something creative. Make a new figure on a vintage cardback, or maybe make previously unissued figures in a vintage style. Something like that adds value and tugs on the nostalgia strings.

There was one argument elsewhere that stated "well the only reason someone wouldn't like these re-issues is because they are scalpers and want to make money off the old stuff!". That assumption is such a simplistic example of accusational, lowest common denominator thinking that I'd rather just assume that many people here understand why it's nonsense rather than for me to address it. I simply feel that these reissues often prey on the "addict collector" mentality. And sometimes I think it's worse that that consumers will just blindly buy the **** than the fact that a company will make the ****. It's not a perfect argument, but the reissues drive me nuts for a myriad of reasons that have nothing to do with me doing an occasional vintage ebay event, you know?

The other thing to consider is from the collector point of view, which should not be ignored. For example, Candy Kappa you are a TMNT collector of some kind. And for this example we are going to say that Scratch is, for whatever reason your personal grail figure. You save for one, you've studied the market on it and spent time hunting for the right example to pull the trigger on. You finally drop the coin on a Scratch, and you have some degree of pride that you didn't just buy it blindly, didn't just throw money at acquiring it. But instead you curated that piece into your collection based on the market demand for it. Now Playmates reissues the exact same Scratch toy as a cash grab and people who put no effort into understanding the market are excited to buy it. But what's worse is that the reissue didn't benefit kids because kids don't buy it. Instead it's a bunch of adult collectors who could've put the market effort in, enriching the hobby and giving everyone more market experience to bring to the table. But they didn't. Instead they went to 7 Targets across two weekends and bought three each through self-checkout. There's more I could add, but give consideration to the point of view from within the hobby as well as the outside looking in.

There is nothing wrong in re-releasing old toys. It's like reprinting a book. As long as there's some evidence on the product that can help telling the new print apart from the original "batch", it's ok and not sketchy at all.

I understand this perspective completely. What are the discerning markings on the Real Ghostbusters releases that are coming up? Do we know?

Some vintage figures have their prices bloated due to the myth of the figure being rare then actually being rare.

Scratch is a great example on this as people thanks to rumor mills and myths that he's super rare that people legit buy him for $500-$800 loose without accessories, but the figure is far from the most rare TMNT action figure.

But, Origins Scareflow isn't a re-issue, not any more of a re-issue then Classics Scareglow, as it's a new sculpt emulating the vintage 5.5" style with new articulation.

That is the Origins line, new sculpts that fit the vintage line-up, and they added things that was omitted from the original toy-line like He-Man's boot dagger.

It may be a simplistic take, but it's probably also ringing a lot of truth. People that makes money off selling old stuff is mostly afflicted by re-releasing old figures, cause now people that isn't into the vintage collector marked and probably end up buying a overinflated figure of their favorite character that didn't have a big toy roster, or they wanted a figure that looks like what they had as a kid, could now buy the reproduction figure at a better price.


Most collectors are adult, and should be able to make their own decisions to buy the new thing or not. There's so many niche way of collecting from purely vintage, to specific years to everything one character. Some collect variants like paint difference or packaging differences, and even which country produced the figure, like with He-Man where here's a marked for Mexican, Malaysian or Indian produced figures.

Which is a valid part of collecting, and what most serious vintage collectors do in any hobby be it toys or antiques.


And why is this bad? Now, people that like Scratch can get one.

It doesn't affect the hypothetical Scratch-owning me as that is not a Vintage Original Scratch, so it shouldn't even be a blip Scratch!Me's radar unless I'd like a modern version of Scratch, maybe keep the new one on package if it emulates the vintage hardback, or the new one actually have all the accessories, cause Vintage accessories also goes for overinflated bloated prices and some collectors are giving repro accessories a pass, like in Star Wars Vintage collections, as most blasters are lost.

And who cares if people that "don't understand the marked" gets a reproduction of a vintage item, that just sounds like gate-keeping snobbery, maybe it mattered to Scratch!ME to understand the marked and playing it to my winnings to get that Vintage Scratch, but that's a niche thing and as an adult should understand that not everyone is interested in spending a long amount of thine gaining the workings of buying and selling old stuff without being ripped off.


And kids probably wouldn't buy a Scratch to begin with, just like Super7 making MOTU figures that takes a likeness to the cartoon but stay in the Vintage design, it's for collectors and people that have a connection with the franchise or specific figure.

But, maybe a collector who loves Scratch could now buy one of their kid and share their love for the character, instead of risking the child ruining a $800 figure.

But the people that buys the repro Scratch is enriching the hobby, they bought a repro Scratch from Playmates who makes TMNT toys, and the sales goes to further growing of the franchise.

There's still gonna be people that want the Vintage thing cause it's the Vintage thing, and the enriching will continue in the vintage side of the hobby.

At the end of the day, a reprint of Action Comics #1 don't hurt the value of a actual 1st print from 1938, nor should a owner of a 1st print be pissy that people buy and own reprints of Action Comics #1, that's just petty gatekeeping elitist bull**** that would hurt the hobby.

eh... -shrugs- all good points. All your points are fine...... eh

I don't buy toys that often. I don't have a lot of money sitting around, and I don't really use them for anything other than display. If I'm buying something, it's usually for the nostalgia factor or the price is so low as to be negligible.

So this is something that piqued my interest.

Reselling the old molds seems like common sense to me, in terms of business. The market is there, why wouldn't the company restart a discontinued line?

The thing that stops me is, as IMJ pointed out (that ad is hilarious) that it's expensive as hell for something I already bought. I can't really justify doing it, no matter how much I want one.

I see you guys with your awesome collections, and I'm jealous as hell. That buyer's remorse hits me hard, though. So. . . I live vicariously through you.

Anyway, I'm happy that these are available, in the very least. It reminds me of Christmas mornings so many years ago.

There is one toy line I WISH would get a redo- Gargoyles. Except maybe this time around, instead of the endless main 6 variants, they should do some of the side characters like Griff and the London clan, the Pack, Talon's Mutates, Oberon and Tytania, or Taurus and the Olympians, The Steel gargoyle clan, Thalog and his clone clan, or even The Hunter or a couple of Quarrymen. That would have made the toyline so much better!

^ If Greg Weisman gets his wish to revive the Gargoyles franchise, you might get some new toys (or, some revised models).

I found this. https://geektyrant.com/news/the-crea...he-series-back

I think WB was easier to convince to revive a cult favorite show for their niche streaming service than Disney will for their service where they want everyone to watch. If we get anything gargoyles it won't be a season 3, best we could hope for is a sequel series but a reboot would just suck. The only reboot with gargoyles I'd want would be a live action movie. Sad that such a great franchise is left to rot in the Disney vault, surely anyone else would've done something with the IP already.

In this case I think it's easier for Disney to let some company make some collector Gargoyle figures for a niche market than we are for Disney caring to do anything else. Oh and btw Gargoyles Season 3 > Weisman's Season 3 comic

Technically, season 3 was the Goliath Chronicles, and the comic would have been 4. But since Weisman doesn't claim GC as "official canon" (which is weird, because it WAS part of the original series, whether he worked on it or not) the 3/4 issue is kinda a grey area. But I still view both as canon, so imho we SHOULD be up to 5 by now!

I'd love to see a new line of Gargoyles, but I'm definitely down with new stuff based on old I.P.'s as opposed to just recasting old molds.

The G.I. Joe 25th Anniversary line did this perfectly.